Jarry I, Count of Pontillo, was in his sixties, and in this era, it was rare for normal people to live to this age, let alone a veteran like Guy. From the time he inherited the title in his twenties, he was at war with various enemies, first against the Normans, and after Mortimer saw the Duke of Normandy sweeping away the French army, he became a Norman vassal. He followed the Duke of Horsehead, conquered the Mann and Breton, it was he who captured the Earl of Wessex like a wild dog, and it was he who slaughtered the Earl of England and Thain on the bloody battlefield of Hastings. He couldn't remember what year it was, maybe thirty-nine, maybe forty-one, but Guy could have fought on horseback all day in heavy chain mail and a kite-shaped shield with iron hubs, and the next day he could a Sussex woman in Clohurst to the point of weakness - who could believe that the black-robed old man with the rosary was the Earl of Wido in the Norman mouth?

"Here comes the Anglos!" The Count's musings were interrupted by a young voice, it was one of the grandsons of Count Guy who could no longer remember the name of the child, except that his birth mother was currently one of Robert's mistresses in stockings.

The last "Anglo" seen at the castle was Harold Godwinson, who had been dead for almost twenty years, but strictly speaking, Fort Abwehr is no longer the Carolingian old fort of the past. Like a nightmare-ridden Count Guy sat haggard in his tower, looking out through the narrow window, but his cloudy eyes could not see anything, whether it was a bustling town or a wide river.

"Father, the English have asked to enter our castle." The Count finally heard a familiar voice, which made his withered heart feel a pang of relief, although this guy had always resented his refusal to go to hell, but after all, he was his own son and heir.

"Who's down there?"

"A beautiful Spaniard, supposedly the brother-in-law of the King of England." Hugg couldn't help but show a trace of disdain, the old guy with the golden tacks on his cuirass actually dared to scare himself with ten cavalrymen, and finally showed his cowardice in front of the deep ditch and high fortress of the Pontilyo, and took the initiative to remove the high helmet.

"When did Caen's cavalry leave?"

"They've been gone for four days, father."

Guy was far from being as dull as he seemed, Caen was at the center of all struggles, and the English could not force their way into the duchy before the situation was clear, which would make them look like invaders rather than allies.

"Don't ignore the people out there, and don't provoke them." Although he didn't intend to let them in, the Count of Pontilio knew that he would have to make a choice in the end.

When Yu Ge appeared in front of his father again, his expression was already a little flustered, several strands of yellow hair curled out behind his ears, and his golden thick eyebrows almost stood up: "My lord! The Spaniard said that they had captured the Alc......"

Miraculously struck, Count Guy stood up, his legs astonishingly swift, and in a split second he crossed Hugue and drew his ivory-handled dagger from his waist. He stepped over to the wall and slammed his steel blade into the stone window, splattering a string of sparks from the rock surface, which were scattered metal shavings.

The Count remembers, of course, the Château d'Alc, where his eldest brother was slain by the Duke of Normandy at the foot of that fortress, and his own sister, the uncle of Duke William himself, witnessed the tragedy from the castle's tower. Guy was just an adult at the time, and when he saw the corpse returned by the Normans, he immediately vowed to join Talo's rebels and avenge his brother—everything that followed was like a dream, but the name of Alc was etched in the depths of his memory, and he leaned against the cold stone wall, smelling the familiar smell of death.

The Count of Rodrigo was admiring the chapel of Pontillo, a building no different from the small chapels of all over France, not as majestic as Westminster, without the idea of towering into the air, occupying a wide space on the side of the castle in a low place, and a ring of battlements on the ground floor, which was like a fortress in itself, and the style was closer to the austere abbey chapels of the Languedoc in the south, without intricate patterns and ambitious spires, except for two unpretentious columns standing on the side of the door. With its duplex arches leading to rose-patterned columns and metal-inlaid beech lintels, this Frankish building is like the world's Roman roads, and the influence of Euclid and Thales is evident in the pursuit of order in the bones of London's columns and columns that use the illusion of light and shadow to create the appearance of deep forests and reclining round pedestals.

"The door opened." The Earl's bodyguard, the Knight of Avar, pointed to the opposite side and shouted.

Reluctantly, Hugues of Pontilio ordered the pikemen to pull up the hanging door, and then hurried down the rampart, where a banner fell right behind him, swept by the wind towards the trench beyond the wall of the pit latrine.

After the most chaotic greeting ceremony, the English cavalry entered the fortress of the Count of Pontillo, and the Count of Rodrigo noticed that the fortress was actually quite fashionable, such as the protruding structure on the brightest wall, which was a "sun room", that is, the residence of the lord himself, whereas in the northern tradition the lord always slept with his guards.

The floor of the main hall was covered with various furs, and the hall was fenced with a tent around it, but there was still plenty of space inside, and near the fireplace there was an eagle stand, on which was apparently the owner's favorite falcon.

Alva scrutinized the hall nervously, as if trying to find a heavily armed ambush from behind the curtains.

"Your retinue and horses have been arranged." Hugg tentatively said in the most amiable tone possible, "Are you planning to go to Normandy?" ”

Now that Alc had been occupied, the kingdom of Pontilio was immediately isolated, and the road to Flanders was completely cut off; Ships hiding from their own fleet near the mouth of the sea had just fled south in groups; The Normans were on the other side of the Somme, and by the time they arrived, Hugg and his son had already become prisoners of the English king, not to mention that in the current situation, it was impossible for the Duchy to take care of rescuing Pontilio.

Rodrigo shook his head slightly, not in a hurry to answer, no matter whether Count Guy showed up or not, he could not jump out of his noose, only obediently cooperated.

Hugue de Pontillo's long, freckled face glowed unnaturally, like that of the overindulgent womanizers, and the Spanish knight Alva immediately remembered Robert Mallett of the castle of Carnarvon, a Norman who seemed to have grown more and more after returning from Italy, and did not care at all how many illegitimate children he would eventually produce. However, the eldest son of the Count of Pontilio did not have the usual cunning demeanor of Robert Mallett, and the middle-aged man's face showed the innocence of a child from time to time, and his arms were too thin to be accustomed to the sword, and Alva immediately came to his conclusion: this was an easy fellow to deal with.

"Lord Huge, has it been foggy lately?" Count Rodrigo suddenly asked casually.

"Yes, the market is many days late because the road is so bad." Hugue's attention turned to the problems of the Spaniards for the time being, and he began to complain that the town of Abwey was the largest between Amiens and the Strait, and that if it continued like this, this year's taxes would be affected.

Rodrigo, on the other hand, was worried about another matter, for before crossing the sea, the king had made him keep an eye on the line of communication from Calais to Normandy, and from Boulogne he found that there were very few vehicles coming from the south, and that the fog was particularly thick near the Boulevard Agrippa, north of Amiens, which spread from the forest near Cressy to the banks of the Somme. From the towers of Fort Abwehr, a thin mist could be seen covering the wilderness, blocking the shore—the king's fears were not unfounded, how to supply his 20,000 troops in such an environment?